This Week in Xbox: July 23-30, 2008

I'm glad to be back from this year's E3 show. (If you missed it, check out our coverage.) This year's show was a mixed bag, in all honesty. On the downside, the venue looked like a ghost town at times, and reminded us of the excitement and insanity of E3s of old. On the bright side, though, we saw some fantastic games (see aforementioned coverage), got hands-on time with everything from LEGO® Batman™: The Videogame to Dead Space™, saw the most amazing fake band ever playing Guitar Hero® World Tour, and got to see The Who (yes, that The Who) in a 2,000-person auditorium at MTV/Harmonix's Rock Band™ party. Plus, Major Nelson had freaking MacGyver come in to wire up our high-speed Internet connection at the hotel. (I'm pretty sure we had more bandwidth than the entire island of Bermuda.)

We played Dead Space. It's seriously creepy.

Weekly Civilization Plug

The trip did cause me one dilemma. I'm so hooked on Sid Meier's Civilization® Revolution™ that I, er, might have ended up buying the version for a certain portable game console to get my gaming fix on the trip until I could get back to the superior Xbox 360® version. (Alas, it didn't compare. The game's all there on the portable version, but the tiny screen and lack of a Civilopedia hamper the experience.) Glad to be home and playing the full version on the big screen again. (You thought I was kidding when I said I was going to plug this game for the rest of the year, didn't you? Not till you've all played it!)

If you're still not sold by my Civilization Revolution enthusiasm,
try the free demo on Xbox LIVE Marketplace.

Speaking of my inability to stop playing Civ, our friends at Turtle Beach sent us the new Ear Force X4 headset to check out, much to the relief of my wife, who was getting a bit tired of Civ's advisor babble. This wireless headset features full Dolby 5.1 surround, connects to your controller to allow in-game chat, and has a pass-through so you don't have to disconnect it to use your stereo speakers. The sound is really good (particularly for wireless headphones), the surround is effective enough that you don't lose positional cues, and the ability to individually adjust game and LIVE chat volumes rocks. These babies aren't cheap at just under $200, but really, how much is keeping your wife/girlfriend/boyfriend/roommate/tiny alien friend happy worth?

This Week in Marketplace

Before Mass Effect™, there was Jade Empire™, BioWare's RPG set in ancient China that combines martial arts and mystical powers. This week, Jade Empire joins Xbox Originals, and this highly-rated RPG is now just a download and 1,200 MS Points away. If you're a fan of Mass Effect or Star Wars®: Knights of the Old Republic™, you'll want to check this out.

BioWare's RPG excellence comes to Xbox Originals.

On the Xbox LIVE® Arcade front, you'll find 1942: Joint Strike, which takes the top-down aerial shooter and remixes it with 3-D HD graphics, and Go! Go! Break Steady, a truly original game which mixes the rhythm and puzzle genres. Also on tap this week is an expansion for one of my favorite Xbox LIVE Arcade games, Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords™. Called Revenge of the Plague Lord, this is more of a "Puzzle Quest 1.5" than just a mere expansion pack. We're talking four new hero professions (Bard, Rogue, Ranger, and Warlock), a new map area with 25 new quests, more than 50 new spells, 40 new magic items, and three new achievements.

More Puzzle Quest goodness arrives on Xbox LIVE Arcade this week.

Wrapping Up

That's it for this week. Be sure to share your impressions of the E3 news in the This Week in Xbox feedback topic. Or just drop by and let us know what games you want to see tips for in future episodes of Insider Moves.

Article by Denny Atkin